Alibaba IPO looms large for investors, American rivals

On Wall Street, all eyes are looking to China.

The e-commerce giant Alibaba is expected to set an IPO price between $66 and $68 a share.

Alibaba stock begins trading tomorrow on the New York Stock Exchange. It could be the richest IPO ever, raising more than $24 billion.

To give some perspective, CBS News contributor analyst Mellody Hobson described Alibaba as "Amazon and Ebay combined when you look at their $250 billion in annual transactions."

"And to give you a sense of that, 80 percent of all online transactions go through one of their platforms in China every single year," she said.

Even so, Hobson says buyers should be wary of investing in the stock because of how hyped it is.

"I would be very nervous," she said. "Expectations are so high on this stock that if it just trips a little bit ... it will fall far. But what I would say also is you want to be very cognizant of their governance structure, which is a little unusual, and also be cognizant of the fact that the SEC in the past has had friction in the past with Chinese companies because of differences in our regulations."

Hobson says the number of insiders who will be able to sell on the first day is extraordinary.

"They'll be able to sell 60 percent of the IPO proceeds," Hobson said. "That's a lot. More than the Facebook people were able to sell. It's huge."

Hobson says the stock could also have big implications for American tech companies.

"This is important," Hobson said. "Two companies I'd be watching: Yahoo and Amazon. Yahoo because they've been a de facto tracking stock for Alibaba because they own 16 percent of the company. They're going to unload a big portion of that. Some say their core business will have negative value, and one big tech insider told me they may go private one day. And then Amazon, if Alibaba comes into this country, that will be a blood bath."